A Visit With an Old Friend

It’s always a very pleasant experience to visit the waterfront and watch the commercial shipping come and go, and I’ve enjoyed doing this in many different places.  On a recent vacation in Alaska, I spent many happy hours on the Coastal Trail in Anchorage.  Stomping through the snow and gazing upon the placid but cold water of the Cook Inlet, I had the pleasure of seeing several vessels, both underway and anchored.  The star of the show, however, made her appearance just before I was due to return home.  This was a special ship, one my family and I had sailed on fourteen years earlier.

But let us begin at the beginning.  I arrived in Anchorage on Wednesday, April 15, 2026.  The next morning I made my way to the waterfront, about twenty minutes’ walk from my sons’ and granddaughters’ house.  While they were busy in school and at work, I found this tug and barge reposing on the anchoring ground just past the snow-covered tidal flats:

This is a popular spot, with vessels anchored here frequently.  On the following Monday, April 20, I found another tug and barge combination reposing there.  By this time, though, milder temperatures had eliminated some of the snow:

In the early morning of Saturday, May 2, yet another tug and barge rested at anchor there, while to the left, the tug One Cure pushed a loaded cargo barge ahead, bound for Valdez[1]:

Half an hour later, the One Cure and her barge were gradually fading into the mist as they proceeded seaward:

With some of the family joining me in the late afternoon of Tuesday, May 5, my son Steven took this profile view of the freighter North Star departing Anchorage:

A few minutes later, he caught the North Star farther along the channel with Mount Susitna in the background:

Finally, the big day arrived.  In the cold early morning of Friday, May 8, the cruise ship Nieuw Amsterdam of the Holland America Line came into port.  We had made a Caribbean voyage aboard this grand vessel in February of 2012, and we’ve had very happy memories of this occasion ever since.  Ten years after our voyage, Steven and the granddaughters and I had the pleasure of seeing her moored in Whittier, Alaska, one Sunday afternoon on May 15, 2022.  Today’s arrival in Anchorage would thus be our third rendezvous with this great ship.  And so, shortly after 6:00am, she came into view as she rounded Point Woronzof by the Anchorage International Airport:

Several minutes later, I caught a lucky shot of the Nieuw Amsterdam with an Alaska Airlines 737 passing overhead and coming into port as well:

After a few more minutes, the Nieuw Amsterdam aligned herself with Mount Susitna:

Soon she came abeam of me, and I caught a profile view;

As the Nieuw Amsterdam sailed farther up the channel, I hustled along the Coastal Trail to a new vantage point.  As I hurried along, I caught another lucky shot of the ship framed by the forest:

Finally, the great lady came alongside the wharf just north of the downtown area, right on time for her scheduled 7:00am arrival:

Twelve hours later, we went on a family outing to the docks and Steven found the Nieuw Amsterdam moored in an industrial neighborhood backed by mountains, a somewhat incongruous setting:

Late on Saturday afternoon, May 9, the Nieuw Amsterdam set sail and departed from Anchorage.  Watching from Point Woronzof, I took this port bow view as she approached us:

A few minutes later, with the ship at her closest point of approach to us, Steven caught this profile view of her:

He also recorded my granddaughter Miss Katie watching in rapt attention as the great ship sailed in front of her:

She did not remain in front of us very long, however, as this port quarter view from just a few minutes later can attest:

Finally, with the Nieuw Amsterdam fading into the distance, it was time to bid her a fond farewell with wishes for a fair wind and a following sea:

Just as the Nieuw Amsterdam’s two-day visit to Anchorage went by too quickly, so did my three-and-a-half week vacation there also pass much too quickly.  It was a precious time.  My purpose in going to Anchorage had been to visit family; visiting the waterfront and watching the merchant fleet came as an added bonus.  While I am thankful for this bonus, I appreciate my children and grandchildren much more deeply.  They are truly “an heritage of the Lord” (Ps. 127:3), and any time spent with them is precious, much more so than the time spent watching a ship arrive and depart.  Indeed, the Nieuw Amsterdam is special to the family only because of the voyage we made aboard her together fourteen years ago.  Without this family connection, she would be just another cruise ship.   

I will leave the closing thought to Steven.  When I was blissfully unaware of what he was doing, he took this photograph of a tired, old, and indigent merchant seaman wandering aimlessly along the water’s edge with the Nieuw Amsterdam in the background.  For some of us, no matter how long it’s been since we went to sea, we just can’t stay away from it.  Now we even drag our families along with us to the waterfront!

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[1] Information from marinetraffic.com.

Always Drawn Back

My son Steven remarked to me that I had “just scratched the surface” of our vacation in San Francisco in my recent compilation on the subject.  He was right, of course.  Like all major cities, San Francisco and its environs are a large subject.  One week is nowhere near enough time to take in everything the region has to offer.  This realization makes it easy to understand why some people return to the same places repeatedly.  They simply want to experience everything in their favorite vacation spots.

San Francisco, with its surrounding waterways and with the happy memories it that holds for me, remains one of my favorite locations for both vacation and nostalgia.  It’s difficult to mentally separate even the present-day city from the memories of the happy golden years that I spent aboard ship.  With these thoughts in mind, let us once again take a stroll through the town and along the waterfront and perhaps even another voyage across the bay.

Starting in the historically Italian North Beach neighborhood on Sunday morning, June 8, 1980, we come upon the Church of Saints Peter and Paul:

Operated by the Salesian Fathers, who provided the photograph, this church offers Masses in English, Italian, and Chinese, and its façade displays the famous opening line of Dante’s Paradiso:

La Gloria di colui che tutto muove per l’universo penetra e risplende.[i]

This verse rendered into English becomes:

The glory of him who moves all things through the universe penetrates and shines.

Returning to this church with Steven on Saturday, August 2, 2025, I photographed this inscription for both old times’ sake and posterity:

In concurrence with Dante, I’ve long regarded the Deity in seafaring terms, as the Master and Chief Engineer of the universe, and I’ve seen his glory countless times both on the world’s oceans and in the celestial sphere above them.  Saving this thought for another day, however, we next climb Telegraph Hill and proceed to the Coit Tower to take in the view of the harbor front.  With Steven on that same Saturday, I recorded this northward view which shows the historic freighter Jeremiah O’Brien resting quietly alongside her pier:

Next, this eastward view shows several of the old freighter piers as well as the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge and Yerba Buena Island:

For comparison, here is the same view on that June Sunday in 1980:

Looking northward that same afternoon, we see a scattering or recreational craft on the bay:

Since the development of containerization, most of the cargo is now handled at more modern facilities in Oakland.  These old piers have been repurposed and now host an assortment of offices, restaurants, retail shops, museums, and some light industry.  Their facades have been cleaned up and now present a pleasing aesthetic at street level as we see here on the last day of July of this year:

At the approach end, however, some of the old piers seem less well preserved but sport vestiges of their glory days.  Here is Pier 33, seen from the ferry Alcatraz Flyer on Tuesday, July 29, 2025.  Note the very faded but still legible inscriptions of the structure’s former tenants: the Union Line, the Pacific Far East Lines and the Furness Lines:

Also on that same overcast morning we see the Coit Tower by looking upward from street level at the waterfront:

Forty and more years ago, two ferry lines connected San Francisco with the communities of Sausalito and Larkspur to the north of the city.  Now, a vastly expanded fleet also links the city with Oakland, Alameda, Berkeley, and Richmond.  The voyage to Oakland took Steven and me under the Bay Bridge on Thursday afternoon, July 31.  This was my first time sailing across the bay and passing beneath the Bay Bridge since the Comet returned from Japan early on the morning of Easter Sunday, April 22, 1984.  It felt great to be back and crossing the bay again, especially on such a bright and sunny afternoon:

Most of the ferries that serve San Francisco begin and end their voyages at the iconic Ferry Building at the foot of Market Street.  In the 1980s the front of this building was obscured by an ugly, unfinished, and never-used elevated expressway.  Irreparably damaged in the earthquake of 1989, it was subsequently demolished, and the classical façade of the Ferry Building was once again exposed to the light of day.  Since then, the Ferry Building has been completely refurbished and restored to its former grandeur.  Now, besides hosting ferries, its cavernous interior contains retail shops, restaurants, and other travelers’ services.  Its clock tower, seen here on Saturday, August 2, is visible from all around and stands out as one of the gems of the city skyline:

The rejuvenation of the iconic Ferry Building leads me to recall that in my teenage years I had developed an interest in architecture and even looked into studying it formally at the university level.  To my great adolescent dismay, however, I discovered that it was a five-year full-time program that led to the degree of Bachelor of Architecture, and that was followed by a two-year full-time program that led to the degree of Master of Architecture.  Seven years in college!  I was horrified, and so I never pursued the matter further.  But my interest in the subject has remained with me through all these years, and I found San Francisco to be an architecture lover’s dream.  I suppose entire books have been written on the subject, but I’ll content myself with a few amateur photographs.

Three stops on the subway from the Ferry Building is the Civic Center.  Presiding over this campus is the San Francisco City Hall, a building that looks more like the capitol of a state or country than of a city.  Here we see it in less-than-ideal photographic conditions in the early evening of Tuesday, July 29:

Sharing the Civic Center acreage with City Hall are the San Francisco Public Library, the San Francisco Opera House, the Supreme Court of California, the Asian Art Museum, the Federal Office Building, the Herbst Theater, and the Graham Civic Auditorium. While they are all architecturally significant structures on their own, together they form an even grander masterpiece that can rival any European capital.  On the lighter side, the Civic Center, and particularly City Hall, were portrayed in the James Bond film A View to a Kill in 1985.

More sublimely, in the nearby Mission Dolores neighborhood, the original Mission Dolores chapel, dating to 1780 and erected by the Spaniards when they first brought Christianity to the region, still stands and remains in use.  Miraculously, this building survived the earthquake and fire of 1906 while the entire surrounding neighborhood was destroyed.  Here we see the interior of the colonial Mission Dolores on Friday, August 1:

Adjacent to this venerable structure stands a newer basilica that features non-identical twin spires.  This is the taller of the two on the same day:

Surmounting the main altar of the basilica is a dome complete with pastel-colored stucco-like walls supporting a red tile roof, all key elements of Spanish Mediterranean architecture:

For many years, San Francisco had a large Spanish Mission style railroad station at the corner of Third and Townsend Streets.  Unfortunately, this magnificent building was demolished in the postwar era.  Happily, however, as part of California’s more recent investment in public transportation, classic railroad stations in nearby cities have been restored and rejuvenated and are now heavily used.  On Thursday morning, July 31, Steven and I visited the lovely Southern Pacific station in San Jose which still proudly bears the name Southern Pacific Lines over its center arched window:

The interior, also renewed and refurbished, has a bright and airy atmosphere enabled by the oversize arched windows, another architectural feature that the Spaniards brought with them from the Mediterranean:

While these and many other cultural aspects of San Francisco and its environs combine to make it a fascinating seaport and a world class city, my favorite part remains the ocean.  Accordingly, then, I will indulge myself for a moment and revisit the city’s oceanfront.   On Friday morning, August 1, Steven and I rode the Judah Street trolley to the end of the line at the western edge of the city:

We disembarked from the trolley, hiked the short distance through the dunes and across the brown sandy beach to the sea:

Standing at the water’s edge, we gazed upon the great Pacific Ocean.  A low overcast, a gray veil of fog, and a cold onshore breeze laden with salt spray combined with the mild surf to form a magnificently beautiful and inspirational sight.  Only a few other people were there, mostly joggers and dog walkers who did not linger.  Thus undisturbed and undistracted, we stood there and stared at the sea and sky and watched and felt the unceasing motion of the wind and waves.  Time itself seemed to stand still.  In the back of my mind, however, I realized that the time we had at this spot would be much too short and would pass much too quickly.  I would have been perfectly content to remain there in front of the Pacific Ocean all morning and then return after lunch.

Eventually, Steven said to me, “Well, I know you could stay here all day, but I’m getting cold.”  He was not dressed as warmly as I was, and my paternal concern for my young son overrode my desire to stare at the ocean all day.  Reluctantly, then, and with many backward glances toward the sea, I walked with him back across the beach and through the dunes to the trolley stop.

It felt very difficult to leave this beautiful location, but it had indeed been a great privilege, especially after so many years, to have stood again before the great Pacific Ocean.  The scriptures enjoin us to “stand in holy places” (D&C 101:22).   Surely the oceanfront is a holy place, one where we can at least temporarily escape the world of human concerns and be inspired and edified by communing with the Deity through the sublime magnificence of his Creation.  While standing in this holy place, Steven and I truly saw “The glory of him who moves all things.”

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[i] Dante Alighieri, Paradiso, third part of the Divina Commedia, c. I. v. i.  

After All These Years

One of my favorite seaports, and arguably one of this country’s most distinctive cities, is San Francisco.  I first went there aboard the Mercury in 1980 and later aboard the Comet in 1984.  I have long wanted to return, but until recently had no occasion to do so.     This changed when my son Steven had the unexpected opportunity to spend several days there as part of a larger itinerary, and he invited me to join him.  Naturally, I jumped at the chance.

San Francisco has a certain mystique that defies description.  Largely surrounded by water, it has long been a very important seaport, although it is much more than that.  One of the cultural, educational, and medical capitals of the West Coast, it abounds in diverse neighborhoods, eclectic architecture, an intriguing street plan, excellent public transportation, and tremendous natural beauty.  In my distant younger days, I reveled in exploring this great metropolis in my off-duty hours.  In my recent older days with Steven, I resumed this exploration, but at a more sedate pace.  We had a list of specific things we wanted to see and do, and my favorites of these involved the ocean, the bay, and the ships that plied them.

After 41 years, my first view of the bay came on Monday afternoon, July 28, 2025.  Standing on the promenade behind the Ferry Building, I felt awed by the sight.  Beneath a sunny blue sky, blue water stretched out before me.  Alcatraz and Angel Islands stood out in the distance.  Ferries, sailboats, and other assorted watercraft scurried to and fro.  It felt wonderful to be back after so much time!

Early the next morning, on Tuesday the 29^th, we boarded the ferry Alcatraz Flyer for the short but pleasant voyage to the island.  A strong breeze came into the bay through the Golden Gate.  It was a cool and cloudy morning that soon changed to warm and sunny.  The self-guided tour of the historic prison was interesting enough, but more so for me was learning that the Alcatraz Island Lighthouse, established in 1854, was the first such aid to navigation on the American West Coast:

Also more interesting were the views of the surrounding bay, prominent islands and peninsulas, and commercial shipping.  The highlight of our visit to Alcatraz came when we emerged from the prison and saw the tanker Harrisburg sailing into the bay from the Golden Gate.  She was bound for Richmond[i], and we watched as she passed between Alcatraz and the mainland:

Close on the Harrisburg’s heels came the container ship Ever Mild.  Appearing faintly at first through the mist, she sailed beneath the Golden Gate Bridge and soon afterwards passed between Alcatraz and the city on her way to Oakland.  Ferries and sightseeing craft shared the bay with her:

Returning to the city about midday aboard the Alcatraz Flyer, we walked to Pier 35 where we came upon the historic freighter Jeremiah O’Brien.  This was especially interesting.  Named after a naval hero of the American Revolution, the O’Brien is a floating museum.  A painstakingly preserved liberty ship from World War II, she serves as an educational vessel representing the approximately 2,700 such ships constructed in assembly line fashion during the war.  She also serves as a memorial to the more than 6,000 American merchant seamen who perished at sea during the hostilities, a very sobering but often overlooked statistic of the war.  The self-guided tour included the bridge and chart room, the engine room, one of the cargo holds, the crew’s quarters, the galley and chow halls, and the open decks.  I found the 1940s state-of-the-art navigational equipment with its near-total absence of modern electronics particularly interesting.  Steven found the machinery space with its twin boilers and single reciprocating steam engine fascinating.  Steam propulsion and celestial navigation ruled the waves in the O’Brien’s day!

Before we realized it, we had spent over two hours aboard the O’Brien.  Hunger pangs finally jolted us out of the distant past and brought us back to the present.  Before leaving the waterfront, however, we paused to take photographs.  The first shows the vessel’s starboard side accommodation ladder:

Next, we have a starboard quarter view of the O’Brien.  Her stern faced the street, and her bow pointed toward the open bay:

Finally, we have a profile view of her port side, taken from an adjacent small boat basin:

The next day, Wednesday the 30^th, we left San Francisco early in the morning and traveled by train to Sacramento.  Our purpose there was to visit the California State Railroad Museum.  Along the way, the train skirted much of the shoreline of San Pablo Bay, to the northeast of the city:

Beyond San Pablo Bay, the train passed by Suisun Bay, the home of the anchored Ready Reserve Fleet.  This has long been a collection of unused cargo ships held in reserve against a time of future national emergency in which they would again be needed.  After I left the Comet in 1984, she went into storage in this anchorage and remained there for many years, with brief recalls to service in the Iraqi wars, before finally being slated for the scrap yard.[ii]  Few cargo ships now remain of the dozens that had been mothballed in Suisun Bay, as this picture of the entire present fleet makes clear:

In Sacramento, the railroad museum was the main attraction; nonetheless, railroad history includes shipping history.  In the old days, passengers and freight bound from points east to San Francisco disembarked from their trains at the end of the line in Sacramento, and then they sailed aboard river and bay steamers for the remainder of the journey.  One of these vessels, the Delta King, now serves a different clientele as a floating hotel, restaurant, and theater:

The next day, Thursday the 31^st, we sailed from the Ferry Building in San Francisco aboard the Carina to Jack London Square in Oakland.  After passing beneath the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge, we enjoyed a panoramic view of the southern part of San Francisco Bay, complete with more anchored cargo ships:

Also along the way, we passed two noteworthy vessels docked in Oakland.  First was the freighter Maunalei of the Matson Line.  This ship sails on the California-Hawaii-Alaska domestic route, and Steven has seen her in Anchorage several times:

The second was the lightship Relief.  Formerly a floating aid to navigation, she now rests quietly alongside a wharf in an industrial neighborhood.  No information about her was available, but I hope that she is docked here awaiting preservation and not destruction:

After disembarking from the Carina, we walked around Jack London Square.  Steven wanted to inspect the new Amtrak station; I indulged myself in a few moments of sentiment.  When the Mercury was being taken out of layup and put back into service in 1980, her crew was housed temporarily at the Jack London Inn in Jack London Square[iii].  This arrangement lasted three weeks in May and June.  Then the Mercury sailed on Father’s Day.  At the time, I felt no particular attachment to this generally nondescript modern hotel.  After 45 years, however, my outlook changed.  As I stood in front of this building once again after so much time, it almost seemed unreal that I had actually come back to this spot.  I had never expected to return, nor did I have any reason to do so until now.  But it felt good to be back, and I was glad to see, with scaffolding in place, that Jack’s hotel was being well cared for:

Returning to San Francisco aboard the Carina in the late afternoon, we passed the container ship HMM Pearl as she headed for the port facilities on the west side of Oakland:

On Friday, the 1^st of August, we set out early and rode a trolley through the western part of San Francisco to the oceanfront.  A beach and a high ridge of sand dunes separated the ocean from the city.  So effective was this dividing line that, when we stood at the water’s edge, the city seemed so far distant as to not be there at all.  Nothing of human habitation could be seen or heard, despite its close proximity.  Instead, the sight of the open Pacific and the sounds of the surf and the cold onshore breeze prevailed.  Fine particles of salt spray blew at us; a dense and gray overcast covered the sea; and distant fog obscured the horizon.  And yet the sight was truly beautiful, even glorious and grandiose:

On Saturday the 2^nd, our last day in town, we scaled Telegraph Hill and took in the panoramic views of the city and its harbor front from the Coit Tower.  Despite a low overcast and thin fog, all of the port’s salient features were easily discernable.  Afterwards, as we reposed again on the promenade behind the Ferry Building, two more noteworthy cargo ships came by.  The first was the Torm Brigitta, shifting berths from Richmond to South San Francisco and seen here passing Yerba Buena Island:

The second ship came along soon after the first and was the Peregrine Pacific, bound from South San Francisco seaward and to Chile:

That Saturday evening, Steven and I departed San Francisco the same way we had arrived—on Alaska Airlines.  While everything we had seen and done on this little vacation was an excellent experience, my favorite was simply standing at the edge of the open Pacific and staring at the ocean.  It was cold, windy, foggy, overcast, and fourteen days’ voyage from Japan.  None of these features would appeal to a tourist, but all of them invite the Spirit to abide with those “that go down to the sea in ships, that do business in great waters” (Ps. 107:23):

The sight of the great Pacific Ocean called to mind the opening verse of Dante’s Paradiso, as it stood inscribed over the front doors of the nearby Saints Pater and Paul Church:

La gloria colui che tutu                       The glory of the One who moves

                        muove per l’universo                          everything through the universe

penetra e risplende.                             Penetrates and shines.[iv]

This glory, doubtless a major factor in the mystique of San Francisco, most certainly penetrated and shone over the city, the harbor, the bays, and the magnificent Pacific Ocean during my recent visit.  May it forever remain. 

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[i] Information concerning ports of departure and arrival from www.marinetraffic.com.

[ii] Information from www.maritime.dot.gov.  This website includes the Comet’s design features, construction and configuration, deck plans, photographs, and historical narrative.

[iii] Jack London (1876-1916), an iconic figure on the San Francisco and Oakland waterfronts, was a merchant seaman and the author of The Sea Wolf, one of my favorite books and a classic of the seafaring life.  A statue of him now stands near the water’s edge in the square that bears his name.

[iv] Dante Alighieri, Paradiso, third part of the Divina Commedia, c. I, v. i.